The defendant Sauckel frequently asserted that the workers
belonging to foreign nations were treated humanely, and that
the conditions in which they lived were good. But whatever
the intention of Sauckel may have been, and however much he
may have desired that foreign laborers should be treated
humanely, the evidence before the Tribunal establishes the
fact that the conscription of labor was accomplished in many
cases by drastic and violent methods. The "mistakes and
blunders" were on a very great scale. Man-hunts took place
in the streets, at motion picture houses, even at churches
and at night in private houses. Houses were sometimes burnt
down, and the families taken as hostages, practices which
were described by the defendant Rosenberg as having their
origin "in the blackest periods of the slave trade" The
methods used in obtaining forced labor from the Ukraine
appear from an order issued to SD officers which stated:

"It will not be possible always to refrain from
using force .... When searching villages,
especially when it has been necessary to burn down
a village, the whole population will be put at the
disposal of the Commissioner by force .... As a
rule no more children will be shot. If we limit
harsh measures through the above orders for the
time being, it is only done for the following
reason .... The most important thing is the
recruitment of workers."

[Page 59]

The resources and needs of the occupied countries were
completely disregarded in carrying out this policy. The
treatment of the laborers was governed by Sauckel's
instructions of the 20th April, 1942, to the effect that:

"All the men must be fed, sheltered and treated in such a
way as to exploit them to the highest possible extent, at
the lowest conceivable degree of expenditure."

The evidence showed that workers destined for the Reich were
sent under guard to Germany, often packed in trains without
adequate heat, food, clothing, or sanitary facilities. The
evidence further showed that the treatment of the laborers
in Germany in many cases was brutal and degrading. The
evidence relating to the Krupp Works at Essen showed that
punishments of the most cruel kind were inflicted on the
workers. Theoretically at least the workers were paid,
housed, and fed by the DAF, and even permitted to transfer
their savings and to send mail and parcels back to their
native country; but restrictive regulations took a
proportion of the pay; the camps in which they were housed
were unsanitary, and the food was very often less than the
minimum necessary to give the workers strength to do their
jobs. In the case of Poles employed on farms in Germany, the
employers were given authority to inflict corporal
punishment and were ordered, if possible, to house them in
stables, not in their own homes. They were subject to
constant supervision by the Gestapo and the SS, and if they
attempted to leave their jobs they were sent to correction
camps or concentration camps. The concentration camps were
also used to increase the supply of labor. Concentration
camp commanders were ordered to work their prisoners to the
limits of their physical power. During the latter stages of
the war the concentration camps were so productive in
certain types of work that the Gestapo was actually
instructed to arrest certain classes of laborers so that
they could be used in this way. Allied prisoners of war were
also regarded as a possible source of labor. Pressure was
exercised on non-commissioned officers to force them to
consent to work, by transferring to disciplinary camps those
who did not consent. Many of the prisoners of war were
assigned to work directly related to military operations, in
violation of Article 31 of the Geneva Convention. They were
put to work in munition factories and even made to load
bombers, to carry ammunition and to dig trenches, often
under the most hazardous conditions. This condition applied
particularly to the Soviet prisoners of war. On the 16th
February, 1943, at a meeting of the Central Planning Board,
at which the Defendants Sauckel and Speer were present,
Milch said:

"We have made a request for an order that a
certain percentage of men in the Ack-Ack artillery
must be Russians, 50,000 will be taken altogether.
Thirty thousand are already employed as gunners.
This is an amusing thing, that Russians must work
the guns."

And on the 4th October, 1943, at Posen, Himmler, speaking of
the Russian prisoners, captured in the early days of the
war, said:

"As that time we did not value the mass of
humanity as we value it today, as raw material, as
labor. What, after all, thinking in terms of
generations, is not to be regretted, but is now
deplorable by reason of the loss of labor, is that
the prisoners died in tens and hundreds of
thousands of exhaustion and hunger."

The general policy underlying the mobilization of slave
labor was
stated by Sauckel on the 20th April, 1942. He said:

"The aim of this new gigantic labor mobilization
is to use all the rich and tremendous sources
conquered and secured for us by our

[Page 60]

fighting Armed Forces under the leadership of
Adolf Hitler, for the armament of the Armed
Forces, and also for the nutrition of the
Homeland. The raw materials, as well as the
fertility of the conquered territories and their
human labor power, are to be used completely and
conscientiously to the profit of Germany and her
allies ...All prisoners of war from the
territories of the West, as well as the East,
actually in Germany, must be completely
incorporated into the German armament and
nutrition industries Consequently it is an
immediate necessity to use the human reserves of
the conquered Soviet territory to the fullest
extent. Should we not succeed in obtaining the
necessary amount of labor on a voluntary basis, we
must immediately institute conscription or forced
labor. ...The complete employment of all prisoners
of war, as well as the use of a gigantic number of
new foreign civilian workers, men and women, has
become an indisputable necessity for the solution
of the mobilization of the labor program in this
war."

Reference should also be made to the policy which was in
existence in Germany by the summer of 1940, under which all
aged, insane, and incurable people, "useless eaters," were
transferred to special institutions where they were killed,
and their relatives informed that they had died from natural
causes. The victims were not confined to German citizens,
but included foreign laborers, who were no longer able to
work, and were therefore useless to the German war machine.
It has been estimated that at least some 275,000 people were
killed in this manner in nursing homes, hospitals and
asylums, which were under the jurisdiction of the defendant
Frick, in his capacity as Minister of the Interior. How many
foreign workers ;were included in this total it has been
quite impossible to determine.

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